A Look Inside

Disclaimer: These pics aren't great so bear with me. It turns out James and I failed to get any good shots of the inside of our house before we started working on it. So these are the pics we took during our home inspection as we were walking through. Hopefully you get the idea of the space.

View standing at the front door looking towards the back of the house.

Many of the houses in our neighborhood are shotguns. Louisville actually has the largest number of shotgun homes in the country. New Orleans used to until Hurricane Katrina wiped so many out. We looked at a lot of shotgun-style homes and I really wasn't in love with the idea of owning one. They are linear in design with a narrow width (around 33 feet) and the rooms are connected so you walk through one to get to the other. The reality is James and I are not tidy enough to have guests walk through our bedroom to go to the kitchen or bathroom so we were really excited to find this place with the charm of a shotgun but a layout that made more sense for us.

Living room fireplace with original ceramic brick heater.

Our home is a bungalow and was built in 1914. It is just the right size for a first home. We have two bedrooms and one bathroom (We would have liked another. Hopefully someday!)

The layout is very square. The bedrooms run along one side of the house and the living space along the other with the kitchen in the rear. The front door opens to the living room with the dining room straight ahead.

Standing at the kitchen entrance looking back towards the front of the house. Love the leaded glass panes surrounding the front door!

Dining room fireplace. Neither fireplaces are functional.

Then the kitchen takes up the rear. To the right of the living and dining rooms lie the bedrooms with the bathroom sandwiched in between the two.

Front bedroom looking towards the front of the house.

Front bedroom looking towards the side of the house. That carpet has to go!

Each bedroom has two closets! Which means the bathroom is teeny tiny because all of the space is used up for bedroom closets. Hopefully we can rearrange the bathroom in the future. The bulge in the back right where the shower head comes out of the wall feels like it could be reduced to make some more room. I would love to put in a clawfoot tub.

The vanity makes my eyes hurt. It is so dated and unusually short so we are looking for second-hand replacement for now. I would love to put in something that looks more like it belongs in a 100-year-old house instead of something built in the seventies.

Standing in the front bedroom looking through the back bedroom to the kitchen.

Welcome to the seventies!

Our kitchen is quite large and laid out terribly. Note the awkward relationship between the fridge and the stove. James and I spend most of our time in the kitchen so there will be some serious reorganization of this space before it is functional for us.

The door on the left leads to the second bedroom and the dining room is on the right.

This pantry space is just off the kitchen on the right. This is the back side. The other side is just as deep. James and I hope to get a stacked washer and dryer to put in this space on the back side so we can use the other side for a pantry. We are thinking of adding some shelves along the wall to the right of the window so we can fill them up with jam :)

We think this must have been an addition to the house. The floor in this space sags a little and the ceilings are lower then in the rest of the house. The same with the kitchen. I assume the original house ended just past the second bedroom.

The door on the left leads back into the kitchen.

I really wanted a house with a porch. Front-porch sitting is a way of life in Louisville. We lucked out and got a front porch and a back deck (with a swing!), both perfect for sitting and watching the world go by.

Looking out at the orchard.

View towards the back yard and the garage.

When James and I first started looking for a house we made a list of our top features we wanted. This house hit them all but one. We didn't get two bathrooms. I'm sure it will be a little bit of a pain when we have guests visiting but  hopefully the addition of a fruit orchard and bee hives will tie us over until we can afford to expand the house.

We do have dreams of finishing the attic space. It would be great for another bedroom and additional bath. Wouldn't those chimney stacks look amazing in a bedroom? 

What Have We Done!

Just kidding, I am really excited to introduce you to James and my new house!! After a roller coaster of a search for a home that met our list, we finally had an offer accepted on this one. And I am so glad we didn't get those other 3. This one rocks!

It was built in 1914 and still has a lot of the character preserved. I'll give you a tour of the house in my next post. The property is a double lot. The house sits on one and 42 fruit trees take up most of the second. 42 fruit trees! I've been dreaming of a house with an extra lot so I could start my urban farm. I never dreamed I would get one with an established orchard. Along with the fruit trees we have hazelnuts, walnuts, grape vines, blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. And did I mention kiwis? Kiwis! (Please excuse the overuse of exclamation points, I am very excited) There isn't much room for vegetables but it looks like making jam might be my first business venture :)

Here is a map of the trees and plants with their varieties listed (for those of you interested in the details). The large square on the left side represents the house and the top of the map is the street side.

Stay tuned to find out where we start with the inside of the house to make it AMAZING!

My First Small-Scale Growing Season

Wow, I didn't realize how far behind I was on documenting my garden until now. I guess that speaks to how wrapped up in it I was. I really don't understand how people fill their blogs with beautiful pictures and helpful info while managing their gardens at the same time. I guess having a few growing seasons under their belt helps :)

Tomatoes. 1,000 pounds.

Nepal, Grushovka, and Silvery Fir Tree varieties

Sold about 750 pounds, donated about 150, and composted the rest. And too many over-ripened on the vine due to having a lot of weekend trips planned and not enough time to harvest. Probably would have had about 1,300 pounds with more harvests.

6 heirloom varieties: Nepal; Pink Berkeley Tie Dye; Grushovka; Galina; Heirloom Black Cherry; Silvery Fir Tree

My allstar tomato pick'r (my momma)!

I ended up basically dry-farming the tomatoes since I did not have a good water source at the garden. That meant smaller fruit with more intense flavor and a shorter life for the plants. They were dying by mid-September and I pulled them all by the end of that month. Can't say I wasn't relieved. Turns out working full-time and traveling a lot makes it very difficult to manage 180 tomato plants. I had a sense it was going to be challenging going in but I wanted to give it a try anyways.

I planted the tomatoes using a method taught to me by Cynthia Sandberg from Love Apple Farms. I didn't use every ingredient in her recipe in my planting hole because I couldn't afford it all, but I got about half in there: fish parts, eggshells, aspirin, and tomato fertilizer.

I had a little blossom end rot on the first ripe tomatoes from the Nepal and Silvery Fir Tree varieties but I picked those and the rest were awesome! I really liked 5 of the 6 varieties I grew. The Pink Berkeley's were a favorite of mine from last year that I had to grow again (and most likely will for as long as I have a garden). The same goes for the black cherries. The Grushovkas are a roma variety that just pumped out perfect fruit after perfect fruit. Seriously awesome plant. And the Nepals were just like those big round red tomatoes you see in the grocery store but with much better flavor. The cherry on top was the Galinas (yellow cherries) which had the sweetest, most delicious flavor and produced like crazy. Next year I will definitely not plant 60 cherry tomato plants but I will plant a few!

My right-hand gardener, Robert, helping to harvest Galinas (yeallow cherries).

I wasn't crazy about the Silvery Fir Tree. (medium-small round red fruit) The plants produced like crazy but the flavor wasn't great.

The best thing about growing all of those tomatoes is the number of new friends I made in the process and neighbors that came out to help harvest and eat them all. I swear there is nothing better then connecting with people over food and a hard day's work in the garden.

Crazy thing is before last year I didn't like fresh tomatoes.  Now I am craving tomato and lettuce sandwiches but not any of those winter tomatoes. Only fresh off the vine for me. Until next summer...

My small piece of paradise